Category: Politics

http://youtube.com/v/6KjEdTMLtDk

Check out Obama’s cool victory speech. Wonder who is speech writer is?

There is no question that this is a historic moment in American politics where a predominantly white state has voted resoundingly in favor of an African American. It might just be a start, but a start nevertheless.

The immediate question that comes to mind is clearly, What next? Where does Pakistan go from here?

• President Musharraf can now claim that his Emergency rule was justified given the law and order situation. In short, he could tell President Bush & team, “I told you so”, thereby countering any cutbacks in the funding from the US.
• Nawaz Sharief, the other political force in Pakistan must now be terrified to campaign. The election will most likely be postponed, but a fair and free election seems unlikely anytime soon.
• The Bhutto family decision to continue its hold on power is not surprising, but it remains to be seem if this is viable in the long term. Sadly, this is likely to stunt the rise of any new leadership.

With President Musharraf no longer army chief and the country clearly in a crisis, with control on the purse strings, the US is clearly in a position to call the shots in Pakistan, more so than ever before. As a start, it would be best if the US demanded greater transparency in return for continued funding with a not too long term commitment to transition Pakistan to a democratically elected government. This is easier said than done, but a firm long term US policy on Pakistan (with or without Musharraf) is long overdue. The current criss might be the perfect opportunity to develop and execute on a new long term strategy.

Ironically, Senator Obama is drawing heavily from Bill Clinton’s strategy in 1992 where he positioned himself as the candidate of change while his opponent George Bush Sr. stood for experience. In fact, Bill Clinton argued then about the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience referring to the same old Washington way of doing things. The big difference though was that Bill Clinton had the experience of having been Governor in Arkansas and backed up his claim by touting his track record.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton’s best possible response to this might be to accept that Senator Obama has a good story to tell on the change front. She should go to the extent of stating that her husband come to power using precisely this theme. However, she and her husband soon realized that change in Washington is easier said than done. There is a learning curve involved in bringing about change in Washington and she has first hand experience of facing the challenges of attempting to bring about change. This would clearly be a much more creditable and genuine argument as opposed to touting her questionable 35-years of experience.

Its hard to imagine that a master strategist like Bill Clinton and all the high-priced consultants on the Hillary campaign are unable to work up a better strategy. In fact, Bill Clinton lost a golden opportunity on the Charlie Rose show to accept that the change theme works but has a learning curve involved once you get to Washington.

It is quite possible that the ulterior motive of this advice might be to derail Senator Clinton because Karl Rove thinks she is harder to beat with the current crop of Republican candidates! It will be interesting to see if Senator Obama takes up this advice in the coming weeks.

With President Musharaff no longer army chief and having announced elections, he, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief are jockeying to either gain or share power. It is a pity that there hasn’t been an opportunity for the next generation of politicians to emerge from the grassroots. With both Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharief being lifetime appointees of their respective parties, there is little hope of the next line of leadership emerging from their parties.

One can’t but help wonder what happened to the legendary Imran Khan. The man who transformed Pakistan cricket has been trying his hand at politics for a long time now. His commitment and resolve are more than apparent in his long struggle. One can only hope that someone like him with grassroots level support might rise to the top and provide the leadership to clean up the mess left by years of corruption and military rule. At the present moment this looks far-fetched to say the least.

For too long, Pakistan has been caught up between corrupt politicians and power hungry dictators on the inside and world powers on the outside. It is about time that the average Pakistani rallied behind new leadership (hopefully someone with grass roots level support and someone who is committed to peace with India) and threw out the dictators and corrupt politicians, and put Pakistan on a road to recovery and permanent freedom and democracy.

Newseek magazine pointed out that Pakistan was the most dangerous part of the world. It is probably fair to disregard the sensationalism behind the headlines, but it is about time, America (and other world powers) took serious steps to return Pakistan to democracy and quit supporting dictatorship under the guise of a war on terror. The war on terror can continue, but without democracy, Pakistan is fertile breeding ground for terrorists.

One questioner, turned up in the audience for a follow up to his video question! This I thought was pretty cool. Unfortunately, the issue he raised (Gays in the military) and the responses he received were not even close.

Setback for Romney

This debate was a big blow for Mitt Romney. His business-like approach to politics completely failed. When asked about “gays in the military” he said he would let the generals decide. When asked asked about water-boarding being torture he said he would take the advice of Generals and others including McCain. Very often he was struggling for words and clearly didn’t answer the questions.

If you think about his responses, these are typical of a classic deal-maker. He listens carefully to all the parties involved, then figures out what works best and then sells it to all and sundry. No principles, no convictions, pure deals. Period. It is no surprise that the man is flip-flopped on a bunch of issues. If there anything he stands for, it is for getting the job done, whatever it might be! Since its hard to run and win a race by being honest about this, he has taken the typical business approach of researching all the issues and their histories, studying the impact of the various positions, and arriving at the optimal winning strategy. So far his leads in the polls indicate that it has worked. However, this debate clearly, left him exposed. (IMHO, that he should be made in charge of Middle East peace efforts, and please, not the presidency!)

The Others

The other candidate who I thought faired poorly was Fred Thomson. His responses simply lacked spirit and energy. In fact, for someone who is so familiar with facing the camera, he seemed completely lost.

Guliani as usual attempted to tie everything to 9-11 and Islamic terrorism, while Ron Paul links everything to the Iraq war. Ron did throw in an interesting data point about Iraq war (I didn’t catch the exact quote. It was something about getting a lot of contributions from war veterans!)

The Winners

The two candidates who I thought did well were John McCain and Mike Huckabee. While John McCain’s personal qualities and convictions bring out the best in him when least expected, Mike Huckabee uses his seasoned speaking talents to win hearts. He is clearly the best campaigner of the lot and might just spring a surprise.

Best Line

To me, the best line of the evening was when Ron Paul said his campaign was receiving so much money they did not know what to do with it!